Pittsburgh, PA – The man arrested in the mass shooting Saturday at a Pennsylvania synagogue appears to have made virulently anti-Semitic posts on a social media platform popular with far-right extremists, including one made shortly before the attack.
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Police have identified the suspect as Robert Bowers, 46, of Pittsburgh. A man with the same name posted on the site Gab.com on the morning of the shooting that “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”
HIAS is a Maryland-based nonprofit group that helps refugees around the world find safety and freedom. The organization says it is guided by Jewish values and history. President and CEO Mark Hetfield said he wasn’t aware of the shooter’s “obsession with HIAS until this morning.”
The shooter opened fire at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue, killing 11 people and wounding at least six others including four police officers. Bowers was wounded in a shootout with police and was reported to be in custody Saturday at a nearby hospital.
President Donald Trump characterized the mass shooting as an anti-Semitic attack and law enforcement officials said they were investigating it as a hate crime.
Bowers has no apparent criminal record. He was registered in Allegany County, which includes Pittsburgh, as an unaffiliated voter. Heavily armed officers responded to an apartment building in Pittsburgh on Saturday afternoon that may have been associated with Bowers.
In a statement, Gab.com said it suspended the alleged gunman’s account Saturday morning shortly after his name was mentioned on police radio chatter. The company said it backed up the content of the account and notified the FBI.
Gab has become an alternative to Twitter for users whose racist and harassing online behavior got them banned from the mainstream platform. The company said it disavows acts of terrorism and violence, but sees its mission as defending “free expression and individual liberty online for all people.”
Gab founder and CEO Andrew Torba declined to answer emailed questions posed by an AP reporter. A post made on the site’s Twitter account on Saturday appeared to revel in the attention prompted by the killings, saying “We have been getting 1 million hits an hour all day.”
The Associated Press reviewed an archived version of the posts made under Bowers’ name. The screen name @onedingo, used on the Gab account, matches email addresses listed for Bowers in online databases that contain the same “onedingo” moniker.
In the description on his account, Bowers wrote “jews are the children of satan.” The cover photo featured the neo-Nazi symbol “1488.” The first two numbers refer to the white supremacist “14 Words” slogan, while “88” stands for “Heil Hitler” since “H” is the eighth letter of the alphabet.
Among his recent posts, Bowers posted a photo of a fiery oven like those used in Nazi concentration camps used to cremate Jews, writing the caption “Make Ovens 1488F Again.” But in other posts he also featured memes containing false conspiracy theories suggesting the Holocaust — in which an estimated 6 million Jews perished — was a hoax.
Another post derided Trump for being “a globalist, not a nationalist” and added that “there is no #MAGA” as long as there is a Jewish “infestation,” using a slur for Jews. The same post also referenced QAnon, a pro-Trump conspiracy theory that started on the message board 4chan and has been spread by a fringe element of the president’s supporters.
Bowers also recently posted a photo of a collection of three black semi-automatic handguns he titled “my glock family,” a reference to the Austrian firearms manufacturer. He also posted photos of bullet holes in person-sized targets at a firing range, touting the “amazing trigger” on his weapon.
Trump has been pouring fuel on the fire. It’s time the uneducated in our community broaden their views and perspective and recognize that immigrants fleeing their countries for fear of their lives aren’t a threat to us.
The white, alt right, who March with torches, will shove y’all into gas chambers at the earliest opportunity.
They began. Anti Semitic attacks are up 57%.
Anti-Semitism under Trump is up 700%. Dont let educated tell you its a boy in Israel or 500lb man in New Jersey. Its the NAZIS again. The very fine Peoples of the President.Remeber, they are all Republicans. I am not saying that Trump is a Nazi . The Nazis saying that. That is the reason they voted for him. They are now fine people, they feel home.
“infestation,”
How come the media is ignoring the fact that Farrakhan used terminology similar to this guy (in his web postings) ?. Perhaps even Farrakhan’s “termite” remark may have been the final triggers that set him off!
The idiots who blame Trump for the massacre by this Nazi, are misguided fools. Rabbi Kahane (z’l) in 1970, predicted that there would be such attacks on Jews. In 1977, two Jews were killed by a sniper, leaving a St. Louis shul. The sniper was caught and executed. In Pittsburgh, in 1986, in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, a Chassid visiting from Canada during Pesach, was shot dead by a Nazi. The Nazi was caught and finally convicted after four trials. He only received 20 years in prison. In 1999, a Nazi shot up a JCC in L. A. and seriously wounded several people. Also, in Seattle, in 2002, a Muslim shot up a Federation and killed a woman employee. In the late 1970’s, a group of Hanafi Muslims stormed an ADL office in D.C., and held the employees hostage for days. In 1966, a psycho congregant of a Shul in Detroit, shot the Rabbi dead during services, on Shabbat, and then killed himself. Also, in 2005, at the Chabad of Boca Raton on Yom Kippur, a congregant shot another congregant dead in the parking lot. However, this deadly shooting is the first time in the history of the USA, whereby a Nazi came into a Shul, and perpetrated mass murder. There must be armed guards at every Shul!
I always knew there are Jewish ignorants but #1 and #2 you are in a category of your own.
Number one,do you not realize that the Nazis were here in the USA a long time,way before President Trump ever came to power????
Excellent point,number two,and it is beyond insane that Farrakhan always gets a pass,for his incitement talk,and no charges are bought on him.
Nothing to do with trump.
Trump is a Ohav Yisroel.
Anti semitism and biased attacks are up ever since the day Obama came into office. He gave those people a free pass to loot, riot, steal and even kill. They haven’t stopped since.